


The Weight and Pain of Life

by UchiHime



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Suits (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Deaf Clint Barton, M/M, Mute Mike Ross, Past Character Death, Past Miscarriage, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Soul Mate Marks, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, just take it as it is, vague Mpreg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-17
Updated: 2014-11-17
Packaged: 2018-02-25 19:39:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2633792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UchiHime/pseuds/UchiHime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky leaves DC to find himself. He ends up in New York found by Mike Ross.</p><p>Or, the Soul Mate AU where damaged and broken Mike finds damaged and broken Bucky and they try to put each other back together again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Weight and Pain of Life

**Author's Note:**

> “One word  
> Frees us of all the weight and pain of life:  
> That word is love.” Sophocles

**The Weight and Pain of Life**

He’s barely half a mile from the banks of the Potomac when the Soldier begins questioning the wisdom of pulling the man called Captain America out of the water. He didn’t understand what had motivated him to do so in the first place. So what if the man claimed to be his friend, people babbled all kinds of things when their moment of death was near.

Except he’d fought the man before, and he wasn’t entirely sure if he would have been able to beat him had Captain America fought him with all his might. There’d been no reason for the man to try to throw him off balance with words. Something inside the Soldier (something like a voice come hand and hand with a splitting headache) had thought the man was speaking the truth, and that was what had prompted his actions.

It had seemed the right thing to do at the time, but now that his mind was no longer so clouded, the Soldier wasn’t so sure of his decision. He never left a target alive. He never failed a mission. And he sure as hell never went directly against orders.

He’d been told to kill Captain America, but instead he’d saved his life. Even if he’d been unable to make himself but a bullet between the man’s eyes, a lack of action would have seen the mission complete. All he’d had to do was leave him in the river. The unconscious man wouldn’t have survived long. But even the act of not acting had been too much for him.

The Soldier kept moving at an unhurried pace away from the site of the destroyed helicarriers (another mission failed, he’d been ordered to make sure nothing interfered with the launch) as civilians and paramedics headed in the opposite direction. There was no way he could have blended with the crowd, so he had to keep moving and divert as much attention from himself as possible.

His first thought had been to find a safe house. He instinctively knew where they were located, though he didn’t remember being told about them. There were four spread across the city, and he knew he would find in them food and a bed and money in case the house was compromised and he had to flee to another safe house out of the city. He knew where the safe houses outside of DC were located as well. He even knew the ones outside of the US. All he had to do was get to a house and wait until his handlers came to see to him.

But the same part of him that said Captain America had been telling him the truth, told him that he should not go to any of the safe houses he knew. There was a fear associated with them that he could not quite understand. He just knew without a doubt that if he ever wanted to know if there’d been truth in Captain America’s words, he needed to avoid the places and his handlers.

He wanted to know the truth. He needed to know the truth.

He needed to know if he was more than just “the Soldier”, more than just a weapon. Had he at some point been a real person? Had he been someone’s friend? Had he been James Buchanan Barnes?

He keeps course for one of the safe houses. If he decided that learning the truth was more important than being a good soldier, he would need the supplies kept there. If he encountered anyone who would impede his self-given mission, he would simply dispose of them. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d killed one of his handlers.

The safe house is, thankfully, empty when he arrives. It looks hastily departed, but hasn’t been stripped clean of its provisions. The Soldier works quickly, grabbing a large Army duffle and filling it with nonperishables, spare clothes, and a few small weapons.

He finds the money hidden in a small safe underneath the floorboards and with it, there are passports and false IDs, some of which has is picture but not his name. He thinks of course they wouldn’t have his real name on them. Up until just recently, he hadn’t thought he had a name. He’d thought he was simply the Soldier or the Asset. Captain America had been the first person to speak the name James Buchanan Barnes to him.

The false name on his passport said Jeffery Baxter Bartlett. He wonders if it was his handlers’ idea of a joke to give him the same initials. There’s other paperwork in the safe and he takes everything with his false name on them. He doesn’t want to have to rely on an alias his handlers created for him, but it would have to do for now. He knew he could be tracked and monitored by this name, but it was all he had until he got the chance to create his own new identity.

If he wanted to create his own identity. There was still part of him that just wanted to wait here until his handlers came and gave him his next mission. Part of him didn’t believe the words of the man called Captain America.

People lied. That’s simply what they did. What would make Captain America any different?

Still, another part of him didn’t want to hand himself over to his handlers until he knew for certain which side was speaking the truth.

The first step to knowing what the truth was would be figuring out who the hell was Bucky. A man like Captain America couldn’t fly under the radar and any friends of his would be just as much in the spotlight. If James Buchanan Barnes was Captain America’s friend, then finding information on him would be as easy as finding information on the Captain himself.

The Soldier quickly changed into a set of civilian clothes to help him blend in with the people outside. He stuffed his combat gear into his duffle and gave the room one last glance over in case there was something else there he might need. His eyes landed on a laptop computer in the corner of the room. He knew better than to take that because it could be tracked, but it gave him an idea of where to head next.

Shouldering his duffle, the Soldier left the safe house and set a casual pace towards the nearest library.

* * *

 

Donna knocks on his door, then lets herself in with a key Mike had never given her. Her response to the look Mike gives her is a smile that says she doesn’t see what’s wrong with this situation. “How are you, puppy?” She asks. She doesn’t expect a reply. She turns and heads straight for the kitchen. Mike follows her silently. He does everything silently these days.

Donna drops her purse and a bag of takeout on the counter. “I went to that diner.” She says conversationally. She’s going through his cabinets and drawers, grabbing plates and forks and coffee cups. “You know the ones with the giant omelets I can never finish. I figured, between the two of us we might be able to do one some damage.”

The coffee machine on the counter is already full, Mike had turned it on as soon as he’d stumbled out of bed. He turns his attention to filling the coffee cups and mixing Donna’s cream and sugar just the way she likes it.

Donna’s talking about some guy who’d been at the diner earlier and Mike just listens to her. She was good at filling the perpetual silence around him. He watches her cut the omelet in half and dish it onto the two plates. For a brief moment, he’s distracted by the almost illegible script decorating her skin just above the bend of her right elbow.

Donna had gotten her Soul Mate Mark the day Mike had lost his. His name was Leonard. An EMT who’d helped pull them out of the wreckage that had once been the law offices of Pearson Specter. His name looked like chicken-scratch on Donna’s skin, a mirror of Leonard’s own sloppy handwriting.

The mark that had once adorned the line of Mike’s collarbone had been both elegant and bold. The handwriting of a man whose signature was as much part of his livelihood as his expensive suits and ties were. Mike had cherished having Harvey’s name on him. He’d loved it even more than seeing his own name on Harvey. Losing that mark should have been a small thing compared to everything else that had happened that day, unless you took into account exactly what the loss of a Soul Mate Mark meant.

Mike pushed it from his thoughts and slid Donna’s cup of coffee across the table to her. She smiled at him and stopped speaking long enough to take a sip. She smiled again. “So, how are you really?” She asked once Mike was seated across from her with his half of the omelet.

Mike shrugged, but Donna gave him a look that meant she wasn’t going to let him slide by with just that. He sighed and set down his fork. Raising his hands, he signed, “Better today than yesterday.”

Using Sign Language had felt clumsy and awkward to him at first, though he’d picked up on it fast enough. His voice was one of the many things Mike had lost the day aliens had attacked New York. The doctors all said there was nothing physically wrong with him, and Mike could believe that. He wasn’t entirely mute. It was just most of the time the words in his brain got lost on the way to his tongue. The idea of speaking sometimes felt as much a trial as climbing a mountain. He’d once had such an anxiety attack from it, they’d been forced to sedate him.

Learning ASL had been the easier option than trying to force the words from his throat.

Donna nodded in acceptance of his reply. “Nightmares?” She signed it back instead of speaking. She hadn’t picked up on Sign Language as quickly as Mike, but she was learning it. Learning it just to be able to communicate with him. Sometimes Mike could force himself to verbalize a few sentences to Donna, but more often than not, she’d end up Signing before he ended up speaking.

“Some nights,” he told her.

She nodded in acceptance to that to. Despite the cover up on her face, Mike could see the tell-tale bags around her eyes that said he wasn’t the only one still dreaming about it a year later.

The first couple of months after the invasion had been hard on Mike. He’d spent more time in the hospital than he’d spent at home. Donna had been one of the only people who visited him there. After he’d finally been released, she’d started visiting him at home. It had been that she was with him almost every day, but with time, her visits had become a standing breakfast date every Saturday. Donna was the only person who’d known Harvey was his soul mate. She was the only person who knew what he’d lost that day. And even she didn’t know everything.

He and Harvey hadn’t been an instant connection like Donna and Leonard. It was actually quite rare to get your Soul Mate Mark the first time you met someone. Grammy had always said, "The Marks aren’t finite, Michael, and they sure as hell don't mean a magical happily ever after.”

His parents had been and instant connection. His dad had told him about how he’d been playing basketball in gym class with his friends, when the ball had rolled out of bounds and he’d chased it over to where a group of girls had been sitting in the bleachers. It had been Mike’s mom first day at a new school and the ball had stopped two feet from her. She’d grabbed it before him and the moment she’d passed the ball into his hands, her name had appeared on his forearm and his on her ankle.

Despite this, it had taken Mike’s dad a whole month to convince Mike’s mom to go on one date with him.

Grammy, on the other hand, had already been dating Mike’s grandfather for three months before his name had appeared on her shoulder. “Even with her name on his arm, your father had to earn your mother’s love,” Grammy had always told him. “By the time I got your grandfather’s name, we were already in love and just had to work to keep what was already there.”

Mike had been at Pearson Hardman for a month in a half before he’d found Harvey’s name on his clavicle. Donna and Leonard hadn’t even spoken a word to each other when his name had appeared on her arm.

Donna followed Mike’s gaze to the bend of her elbow and gave him an almost sad smile. “We’ve decided to let them fade,” Donna told him.

Mike was only mildly shocked. It wasn’t unheard of for people to let their Soul Mate Marks disappear. People grow and change and the compatibility that tied them to their soul mate at the time doesn’t always remain. It wasn’t like you only got one shot at it, anyway. Some people clung desperately to the first person to bring out their Mark, even long after they realized they didn’t and couldn’t love them, out of fear that this might be the only chance they got. But you meet multiple potential soul-mates in your lifetime. Letting go of one was the only requirement for obtaining a second Mark.

Mike signed, “I’m sorry.” Because he knew Donna had wanted things to work out with Leonard. There’d been so much destruction that day, so much bad had happened, they’d both wanted something good to come out of it.

Donna shrugged and poked at her half of the omelet. “Who I was when he pulled me out of the wreckage isn’t who I am now. We just don’t think it’s going to work. It’s no big deal. We’ll both find someone else.” Donna looked almost sad. “Maybe what I need is a slow connection.”

Donna had also had an instant connection with Stephen Huntley during the whole Pearson Darby arc. It had been her first time gaining a Mark. She’d let that one fade, too. There wasn’t really a difference between an instant connection and a slow connection. An instant connection meant that you’re already the person you need to be for the relationship to work. A slow connection meant one or both of you needed to grow a bit first. The Marks didn’t appear until both parties were ready.

Mike frowned, but said nothing. All he could think to say was another “I’m sorry” but he knew Donna wouldn’t want his pity. He took a bite of his omelet instead.

“So, how’s the shrink?” Donna asked suddenly, in a teasing tone. Mike had been seeing a therapist for about nine months now. His selective mutism was due to PTSD, so his therapist was helping him deal with the residual trauma from that day in hopes that it would help him find his voice again. He didn’t think it was much help. So far, the only good that had come from seeing her was the prescription sleeping pills he got to help with his nightmares.

Mike shrugged. “She says I’m making progress.”

“That’s good. And how’s work? Jessica sends her greetings, by the way.” Donna now worked as Jessica’s secretary in the rebuilt Pearson Litt. Jessica had actually offered him is job back, even hinted at possibly making him a named partner, but Mike had declined. He couldn’t exactly be a lawyer if he was mute. Besides, it seemed wrong to practice law without Harvey.

Mike now worked at (believe it or not) Stark Industries. It was a boring accounting position, but he didn’t need his voice to figure numbers. It was pretty easy work for him, considering how his mind processed numbers and how his memory worked. He’d only been there for a couple of months, but so far he liked it.

Jessica had gotten him the job. Apparently she and the CEO, Pepper Potts, had a history. Mike had been hesitant about accepting the job, because it put him in the rebuilt and renamed Avengers Tower. He’d been bitter. The Avengers had done everything in their power to save New York, but they hadn’t been in time to save Harvey. He realized he was being irrational and had took the job because it felt like something he needed to do to start moving forward with his life.

* * *

 

He’d stuck around DC for three weeks before heading out. He’d wanted to go to Brooklyn, but had refrained himself because he knew it wouldn’t have been a good idea. Like a dog finding its way home or a criminal revisiting the scene of their crime, Bucky Barnes would have been expected to go to Brooklyn. He had considered it for only a brief moment, before deciding it would be too risky at the moment. Instead of chasing the newly resurfaced memories that belonged to Bucky Barnes, he left DC following memories of being the Soldier.

In Maine, he realized it wasn’t just his former handlers and Hydra he needed to avoid. The Hydra operatives were still scrambling, but Captain America was well and truly on his tail.

Captain America.

Steve was his name. The man who’d refused to fight him because he said they were friends. Steve Rogers. Apparently a hero and national icon. Captain America saved people. The Soldier had thought that was what _he’d_ been doing. But if Captain America saved people, and he’d been fighting against Captain America instead of helping him, then what he’d thought he was doing was wrong.

Everything he’d thought was wrong.

He’d thought Captain America was his mission, but apparently he was his friend. He’d thought himself a weapon, but apparently he was a person. He was James Buchanan Barnes. Bucky Barnes.

When he’d searched the name on a computer in a DC library he’d been shocked by the results. Bucky Barnes had been a soldier, but he hadn’t been _just_ a soldier. He’d been a hero. He’d given his life protecting his country, protecting his friend. The person Captain America thought he was had been a great person. Bucky Barnes had been a great person.

He didn’t know how to be Bucky Barnes. He didn’t know how to be a friend. All he knew how to be was the Soldier. He did remember Bucky now. The longer he spent away from his handlers, the more his memories returned. Both awake and dreaming, he saw the life of Bucky Barnes play out behind his eyes like watching a film on a cinema screen.

He remembered Bucky Barnes, but he didn’t remember _being_ Bucky Barnes.

And Captain America (Steve Rogers) was chasing him looking for Bucky. He couldn’t let himself be caught because he couldn’t be Bucky, not yet. If Steve caught up with him now, he would be disappointed. He would find a stranger wearing the face of his friend. He would stop believing in him.

He didn’t want that.

He dropped the Jeffery Bartlett alias in Chicago and picked up the name James Steven Bates instead. He’d gotten all the same paperwork he had for Jeffery forged for James and stayed around Chicago long enough for Captain America to catch up. He kicked open a Hydra nest and jumped a plane to Prague while the American hero was cleaning it up.

He spent two months chasing the ghost of his memories overseas. Not Bucky’s memories, but the Soldier’s. Remembering wasn’t enough to teach him to be Bucky again. Remembering could help him clean up the mess being the Soldier had made, but being Bucky was something he had to learn to do all over again. A man could have memories of walking, but that didn’t stop him from needing rehab to learn how to do it over again after damaging himself.

He returned stateside when he figured enough time had passed. It was time to go to Brooklyn. Time to walk the streets that Bucky had once called home and take the hesitant first steps towards reclaiming the man he’d once been.

He hadn’t headed right for Brooklyn. He spent a couple of days holed in Manhattan with his ear to the ground. The three months since the helicarriers came down would have hopefully been enough time to make Steve Rogers discouraged enough to stop searching for him, but it also would have been enough time for Hydra to regroup and start looking for their misplaced “asset.” He wandered towards Brooklyn only to scout for people potentially scouting for him. After a week, he’d deemed it safe to walk the streets out in the open.

That was, of course, when things had gone wrong.

Somewhere along the way, while he was wandering the unfamiliar streets of Brooklyn, he’d picked up a tail. And maybe it was because the person tailing him was so unsubtle that he missed it. His attention focused on the tail distracted him from the ambush until too late.

The Soldier stumbled down the alleyway, clenching his bleeding side tightly with his metal arm. In his right hand, he held a small handgun. He’d made a miscalculation and was now paying for it in pain and blood. So much blood. If he couldn’t get some kind of treatment on this wound soon, he would die from blood loss before the supposed “super” serum inside him could do anything to heal him. He was already light headed and for the life of him, could not remember the details of his exit plan.

He tried to take a step forward, but instead swayed precariously to the side. His right shoulder met the cold wet brick of the alley’s wall and he couldn’t help but mentally laugh at the whole scenario. The greatest assassin in the world was going to meet his death surrounded by trash and shit in some Brooklyn alleyway.

He turned and slumped against the wall, allowing gravity to do its job and lower him to the ground. He closed his eyes. If he was determined enough, he probably would be able to push passed the pain and discomfort and find himself a safe house, patch himself up, live to fight again another day. But that was the problem wasn’t it? He was tired of fighting. He’d been tired of fighting since the day he’d dragged the body of a man who claimed to know him out of a river in DC.

He heard footsteps approaching him, and for a second he feared one of the Hydra agents had come after him to finish the job of reclaiming the Asset. But no. That couldn’t be so. He’d made sure to eliminate all the hostiles in the area, even after he’d been hurt. That was something he could do unfailingly. Because that’s what the Soldier did. He killed.

The Soldier forced his eyes open and gripped the gun tighter in his hand. His vision was blurry around the edges and he couldn’t raise his arm higher than his hip. He hoped whoever was coming towards him would walk by without seeing him. He knew it wasn’t likely, as the place he’d allowed himself to fall wasn’t at all concealed, but still he hoped.

Hoped in vain, it seemed. The person stopped and looked right at the Soldier. He could barely see who it was with his blurred vision and the poor lighting, but he did force himself to raise the gun higher and hold it as steady as he could, which wasn’t very steady at all because it was in his flesh hand. His metal arm could lock in place for optimal stability, but his flesh arm was subject to human weakness. He hoped the threat of the gun alone would be enough, because he wasn’t in any state to shoot with any degree of accuracy.

In that moment he realized just how much blood he’d lost. He was going to lose consciousness. Part of his brain ordered him to fire the gun now. Kill whoever it was in front of him before they saw him even more vulnerable, but the person kneeled down so he was level with the Soldier. All he could see was blond hair and blue eyes and a small frail body.

“Steve?” He said, and even as he finally lost the fight to stay conscious, he knew he’d been wrong again.

* * *

 

Even as he’s doing it, Mike questions the wisdom behind bringing some strange (armed and unconscious) man into his apartment. At least he doesn’t get any strange looks as he hobbles into the elevator with the deadweight on his shoulders. It’s a Friday night and the other tenants of the building probably assumed Mike and his “friend” had gotten a head start on weekend drinking. The man’s dark clothing, thankfully, hid the blood leaking from his side. Mike only knew the blood was there because it was now covering his hand and his own clothing.

He let the man slump against the wall outside his apartment while he searched his messenger bag for his keys. (His hand brushed against the gun he stuffed inside it when he decided to help the man in the alley instead of calling the cops on him.)

Mike had moved back to Brooklyn after he’d had a “major depressive episode” and destroyed the penthouse apartment he’d been sharing with Harvey. They hadn’t been married yet, but they’d already set the ball rolling in preparation for the upcoming ceremony. Their wedding had been schedule for three weeks after the alien attack. They’d been three weeks away from “to have and to hold, until death do us part” when Harvey had died. They’d been living together and had already signed paperwork for insurance policies and updated their wills. No one had contested Mike’s right to inherit Harvey’s money and property.

He would have given it all back if it meant he could have Harvey instead.

Mike had left the hospital after the attack and had gone home to the penthouse. He’d slept there one night. The next day, Donna had come over to find him sitting in the middle of what looked like the result of a natural disaster, crying his eyes out and calling for Harvey.

After a brief stay in the psych ward, Mike had signed the lease for a new place in Brooklyn. He still owned the penthouse, but he hadn’t set foot back in there.

Finally finding his keys, Mike quickly got the door open and half-carried, mostly dragged the unconscious stranger into his apartment and dumped him on the couch. He all but ran to the bathroom to grab his first aid kit.

Stripping the man out of his clothes was a chore, though it ended up being quite enlightening. Apparently the handgun wasn’t the only weapon the man had been toting: four throwing knives, a large hunting knife, another gun. All of it got dumped onto Mike’s coffee table. Removing his shirt revealed and interesting prosthetic in place of his left arm, and a slowly bleeding wound not nearly as bad as Mike had thought it would be.

The sight of blood made him queasy. He had to fight back a tidal wave of memories threatening to drown him before he could even start cleaning the wound. He forced himself to concentrate on one thing at a time and ignore the blood as much as he could. Rubber gloves. Alcohol swabs. Butterfly bandages. Gauze. Medical tape.

Finally, having decided there was nothing more he could do for the man, Mike turned his attention to the array of weapons on the table and wondered what he’d just gotten himself into. He looked back at the man on his couch. He didn’t look dangerous. Sure he was a bit muscly, but something in his face made him look innocent and almost childlike. He had a familiar face in the way many people looked familiar to Mike after having seen them a few times many years ago. Mike had to stop himself from running his fingers through his dark hair. Instead, he searched the man’s pockets instead.

The only identification he found was an ID with the name James Bates on it. With a frown, Mike fished his laptop out of his bag. He wouldn’t consider himself a world class hacker, but he’d learned a few things from Lola Jensen and Benjamin.

He found absolutely nothing on a James Bates that matched the description of the man on his couch. Mike nearly dropped his laptop on the floor when he did find something. What he found wasn’t on the computer screen, but on his own skin. On the inside of his right wrist, he found the word “James” written in tiny, all capital lettering.

He stared in shock at the Mark on his wrist. He touched it hesitantly, as if reaching for a mirage and expecting it to disappear at any second. It was no mirage. He rubbed at the word with increasing vigor, as if he could smudge it out by will alone.

How could he, in the state he’s in, be capable of being anyone’s soul mate? He was mute and practically a recluse. Other than work and therapy, he never left his house, and Donna was the only friend he saw with any regularity.

This had to be a joke. This had to be a dream. He rubbed harder at his wrist. This couldn’t be right.

How could he have a new soul mate when he still loved Harvey? He turns to the man on the couch and looks him over carefully. There! On the side of his neck, only visible because his long hair had fallen away, is Mike’s own name.

He can feel panic building in his chest, and Mike has to force himself to do 7-11 breathing to calm down. He reminds himself the Marks aren’t finite. He reminds himself that they don’t promise anything, that they can fade as quickly as they appear.

He sits back in the armchair and continues his breathing. He can feel himself calming.

Mike startles awake with a scream caught in his throat. For a second, he can’t breathe and he thinks his lungs are still filled with dust and debris from being inside a building literally falling down around him. He gasps and lets out a hacking cough, reaches blindly for Harvey next to him.

He doesn’t fully wake until his reaching arm meets empty air and his heaving body falls forward and off the armchair he’d fallen asleep in. Lying on the floor in front of the chair, Mike curls into himself and cries. It never gets any easier. It never hurts any less. He cries loudly, not bothering to hold back the pained whimpers and body-shaking sobs trying to break free of him. There’s no one around to hear him anyway.

Except there is.

Mike lets out a scream and presses himself back against the chair when he opened his eyes and found another pair staring back at him.

It takes a second to calm his panic and remember.

Mike had dragged an unconscious stranger into his apartment, stripped him down to bandage the bleeding wound on his side, and set up most of the night watching him sleep on the couch. He’d obviously fallen asleep at some point without taking his usual nightmare aid, given his rude awakening.

And now, in the cold light of day, Mike was faced with a potentially dangerous stranger in his apartment, watching him with distant eyes and already holding the gun Mike had left sitting on the coffee table like an idiot. There was nothing he could do about it.

He raised his hands slowly to show he meant no harm. That’s when he remembers the rest. The name that had appeared on his wrist. He wants desperately to lower his arms and cradle his Marked wrist to his chest, but the man (James) still has the gun and Mike is scared to make any movement that could provoke him to use it. He doesn’t move.

They stayed just like that for a long while, Mike crouched on the floor with his hands in the air being watched by a man with a metal arm and a gun. Then the silence was abruptly disturbed by a knock at the door.

“Mike,” Donna called and Mike could already hear her key turning in the lock. Mike turned and glanced at the door. By the time he turned back around, the man with the gun was gone.

* * *

 

The Soldier watched the man through the window. “Mike” he’d been called by the red headed woman who’d pushed her way into the small apartment not even a second after he’d slipped out the window. The red head had continued speaking, though the Soldier hadn’t cared enough to continue trying to read her lips when he realized it was mostly just idle chatter.

Mike hadn’t spoken a single word yet, but the Soldier realized he was communicating just fine in the rapid movement of his hands. He recognized American Sign Language even if he didn’t understand it. It seemed Mike wasn’t made to be understood by him. Because there was no sense to what he’d learned about him so far.

The Soldier had woken on Mike’s couch with the blond asleep in a chair across from him. He’d been stripped down and his weapons laid out on the table in front of him. A large bandage had covered the wound that had threatened to kill him the night before. The wound was now just a slash of tender pink on his skin.

Mike had been sleeping restlessly, and that was what had woken the Soldier. The blond had been crying even in his sleep and had called out for someone named Harvey multiple times. The Soldier had watched him, simply assessing the situation and considering how he should go forward. He’d just decided to leave before Mike woke, when the blond had startled himself awake.

The Soldier’s first instinct had been to kill. But he’d refrained himself. Mike had helped him. The blond could have easily left him to die in the alleyway, or worse, called the authorities. Instead he’d taken him home and cared for his wounds. He’d had no reason to believe anything but trouble would come from doing so, but that hadn’t stopped him. At the very least, Mike deserved the reward of keeping his life for such a selfless (albeit foolish) act.

He’d been trying to decide how to proceed, when a knock at the door had drawn Mike’s attention away from him. Seizing the opportunity, the Soldier had made a quick exit via the fire escape.

He took one last look at the two people inside the apartment and decided there was no reason for him to stick around. There was a Hydra nest somewhere here in Brooklyn, and he needed to get it cleared out.

He was still tired of fighting, but that didn’t mean he could quit. He was a soldier. Even as Bucky Barnes, he’d been a soldier. It was his job to protect the citizens of the United States. Citizens like Mike. Good people who helped strangers dying in alleyways. Mike didn’t deserve to live with a threat like Hydra so close to his home.

The Soldier, no James, turned and headed for his safe house in Manhattan. He would regroup there and come up with a plan of action. He promised that before the weekend was over, the Hydra cell would be dealt with. He owed it to Mike.

He makes it to his safe house without being seen. He’s holed up inside an abandoned building that had never been repaired after the alien invasion he’d read had taken place the previous year. It’s not in the best condition, but it has a roof and running water. He checks the perimeter, before heading inside.

The clothes he’s wearing are filthy with dried blood and unnamed gunk picked up in dark alleyways. He strips out of them on his way to the bathroom and stops only long enough to grab a set of clean clothes. He doesn’t shower, because while the building has running water, it does not have hot water.

James stands in front of the bathroom sink with a rag and a cheap bar of soap. He sees it while he’s rubbing the soap into his hair. On the left side of his neck, high enough that it would be hidden if his hair was down, but easily visible if he wore a ponytail.

Objectively, he knows what it is. But he doesn’t understand how it could possibly be real. How could a man who barely knew himself be capable of being exactly what another person needed to feel complete?

* * *

 

Mike fiddled with the watch on his wrist. It was a platinum Rolex with a diamond inlay. A gift from Harvey to commemorate Mike making partner track. One of the things Donna had liberated from the Manhattan penthouse and brought to Mike’s Brooklyn apartment when he’d first moved there. It had been sitting in a drawer gathering dust. The band was just wide enough to hide the word on his wrist.

He kept his head down and his pace quick. He didn’t live in a neighborhood where wearing an expensive watch was considered a good idea. The shiny metal was like a flashing sign over his head that said “mug me.” He’d seen some thug kid who hung out in front of the apartment building eyeing him on his way to work and anticipation of destruction had fallen like a lead weight in his belly.

Mike paused outside the alleyway he usually took as a shortcut home. Dare he risk walking somewhere isolated in the dark when he already knew something bad was going to happen?

The decision was taken from him by a hand wrapping around his wrist and dragging him into the alley. Mike prepared himself for a fight, but realized he wasn’t the one being attacked. A group of thugs had melted out of the shadows wielding switchblades, but the knives came nowhere near Mike as he was pulled back and forward by the person holding his wrist. A person who was having no trouble kicking the thugs’ asses even without letting go of Mike.

Mike’s heart pounded in his chest as he was shoved back and his unexpected savior executed a perfect roundhouse kick that connected to one of the thug’s temple. The guy fell to the ground like a stack of bricks. “Mike, run,” his savior said, dropping his wrist. Mike didn’t question it, just did as he was told.

He’d almost made it to the other end of the alley, when he was grabbed again. This time it was not his benevolent savior. A knife was pressed against his jugular and Mike froze in place. He squeezed his eyes closed and prayed for a quick death. What he got instead was the sound of a gunshot. Mike screamed.

The knife fell from his throat just as the person holding him was yanked away. Mike kept his eyes closed, fell to his knees, and covered his head with his hands. He stayed that way even after the sound of fighting had ceased. He stayed that way until a hand fell on his shoulder and someone guided him to his feet.

In the yellow glow of the streetlight, Mike saw for the first time just who his savior was.

James was looking Mike over as if searching for injuries. Mike opened his mouth to say he was fine, but the words got caught in his throat, a croaking sound escaped instead. The look James gave Mike was completely unreadable.

Mike frowned, then glanced around the alleyway. There was six thugs in total. Mike had only seen three of them at the start, but there was undeniably six guys strewn across the alleyway, all of them laid out on the ground, but still breathing. The most blood Mike could see was coming from a guy with a busted nose.

The full weight of what had happened hit him all at once. James, the man he’d carried home almost a week ago (a man who’d been armed to his teeth the first time Mike had seen him) had protected him.

James, the man whose name Mike was hiding on his skin, had come to his rescue.

More than that, Mike had been attacked! He’d nearly fallen victim to an armed mugging. He could have been killed!

Mike let out a startled scream as he was suddenly scooped up in James’ arms. He was tossed over the man’s shoulder in a firemen’s carry and James moved quickly across the alley. The next thing Mike knew, they were up on the fire escape, outside the window to Mike’s apartment. James jimmied the lock, and they were just as suddenly inside of Mike’s apartment. Mike was deposited into his armchair, and just as quickly as he’d appeared, James was gone.

* * *

 

He wasn’t stalking Mike. Well, within the definition of the law, he probably was. But he had nothing but good intentions. Mostly. He was just curious. More like intrigued. Mike was an enigma.

This is what he’d learned so far. Mike was mute, but not completely. He only left his apartment to go to work at the Avengers Towers, but had no connection to the Avengers. He didn’t associate with anyone, but every Saturday the red head woman showed up with breakfast for him. He suffered nightmares, but avoided taking his sleeping pills as much as possible. He took the underground to work, except on Wednesdays, when he rode his bike and left work after lunch to go meet with his therapist. Mike had James’ name on his wrist, but he kept it hidden by a watch that should have been too expensive for someone who lived in a Brooklyn box apartment. From what James had seen on the bank statements he’d found after sifting through Mike’s trash, he had enough money that he didn’t actually need to work.

An enigma.

James did admit that he had stalked the red head woman a bit. Her name was Donna. She was a secretary at a law firm. She did yoga on Tuesdays and had a good eye for detail. She had coffee with a woman called Jessica. Jessica had asked about Mike. There’d been one mention of a man called Harvey. James assumed it was the same Harvey Mike had been dreaming about. His name had been accompanied by looks that made James believe he was most likely dead.

He’d only followed her for one week and didn’t feel like continued observation was necessary. Instead, he’d gone back to watching Mike.

While Mike was at work, James spent time in the public library reading books about American Sign Language. It had taken him all of five minutes to learn how to sign the alphabet. He expanded his vocabulary from there. He told himself that learning the language was a useful skill to have and that it had nothing to do with Mike.

Except that was a lie. It had everything to do with Mike.

Sometimes, James took a break from watching Mike to watch someone else instead.

Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson had both moved into Avengers Tower with Iron Man, Hulk, Hawkeye, and Black Widow. Three days a week, Steve and Sam Wilson went for morning runs in Central Park. Once a week, Sam Wilson went flying with Iron Man. James was happy to find that Sam Wilson had gotten his wings repaired. He almost felt bad for having broken them in the first place. He couldn’t monitor all their comings and goings, but from what he could tell Steve and Sam Wilson were still searching for him and taking down different Hydra cells as they did so.

Sam Wilson had Steve’s name written on his left calf. Steve had Sam Wilson’s name on his right bicep.

They were happy.

Mike wasn’t happy.

He did a good job of faking it most of the time, but James could read the sorrow in his eyes. James had also realized that the reason Mike had brought him home that night wasn’t just out of the kindness of his heart, but also out of some subconscious wish to be dead. Mike had carried him home in hope that James was dangerous and would kill him. James wasn’t sure if Mike himself had realized his motivation.

Mike still wore that flashy Rolex every day, even though James could see how much it hurt him just looking at it, and even though James had searched his apartment and had found a cheap watch that would have done just as good of a job at hiding his name on Mike’s wrist.

The night after James had saved Mike in the alleyway, he found a slice of pie on a shrink-wrap covered plate sitting on Mike’s fire escape with a note that said simply, “thanks.”

* * *

 

Mike was 90% sure James was homeless. He was 100% sure James was following him, but he was strangely okay with that. He was not okay with the prospect of James being homeless with winter so fast approaching.

In the end, there was only one thing he could do about it.

* * *

 

On the first day of November, James found a key ring on Mike’s fire escape along with a note that contained the address to an apartment in Manhattan.

A penthouse apartment, James learned when he scouted the place. One with glass walls, a doorman, and a private elevator.

James cleared his things out of his safe house (a different one from when he’d first came to the city, because it wasn’t a good idea to stay in any one place too long.)

He didn’t move into the penthouse.

He moved into Mike’s apartment.

* * *

 

Mike was more surprised by the fact that he wasn’t surprised to come home from work and find James on his couch. Mike blinked slowly. James grinned and pointed two fingers towards Mike like he was shooting a finger pistol, then quickly transitioned from that to having his pinky in the air.

“Hi.”

Mike let out an amused snort, replied with the proper sign for “hello”, and told him he would be sleeping on the couch.

* * *

 

Living with Mike was strange in the way that it wasn’t strange. They fell into orbit around each other easily. Mike showered in the mornings while James made breakfast (there were a lot of fried egg sandwiches until James expanded his repertoire.)  He makes breakfast because he knows of Mike’s penchant for skipping meals and he really wants to take care of him. He walked Mike to work, separating from him a block from Avengers Tower because he didn’t want to risk getting too close and being seen by someone who might recognize him as Bucky.

While Mike worked, James went back to the apartment to take a shower, before heading to the library or the gym, or wandering the city. Mostly he just got himself acquainted with the twenty-first century beyond the knowledge Hydra had left programmed into his brain. Mike picked up dinner for them after work and they ate it while sitting in front of Mike’s TV. On Wednesdays, Mike had therapy and James was in charge of dinner. Sometimes he cooked, sometimes he ordered pizza.

On Saturdays, James woke early and left the apartment before the red head Donna arrived. He spends most of Saturday watching Steve and Sam Wilson from a distance. On Sunday mornings, Mike stayed in his underwear and did things on his computer that James didn’t fully understand. James spent Sunday mornings laid out on the couch reading whatever he’d checked out from the library that week. Sunday afternoons are spent walking around the city together. (James had to literally drag Mike out with him the first couple of times.) They get lunch from street vendors and have dinner at a different restaurant every week.

Mike had a record player in one corner of his living room and had a closet stacked almost to the ceiling with crates of vinyl records. One Saturday afternoon, they cleaned out the closet and James got to dance to music the way he’s used to hearing it played. Some stuff, he’s never hear of, but some brings back music of swing dancing in dance halls with live bands and a beautiful girl on his arm. And it doesn’t hurt to remember.

They talked a lot. Mike had a sense of humor that couldn’t always be expressed through sign language, but James learned to read sarcasm in his eyes. There were things they didn’t talk about, of course. Like the fact that Mike knew his real name wasn’t James Bates or whatever trauma had caused Mike to lose his voice.

James had been living with him for almost two months the first time Mike actually speaks to him. It’s a Saturday and James is getting ready to leave when he hears Mike say, “Don’t go.”

James looked at Mike in surprise, but after a long moment, he just nodded.

Fifteen minutes later, Donna knocked and let herself in. Mike greeted her at the door and James hovered in the background, not exactly out of Donna’s line of sight, but not really front and center either. Donna was already talking about some girl she’d passed on the street, but she cut off midsentence when she saw James there.

“Who are you?” She asked.

He glanced unsurely at Mike, before turning back to Donna and saying “I’m James.”

“You’re the one who’s been sleeping on Mike’s couch.” She held up a hand to halt whatever Mike was about to say to her. “Don’t act surprised, puppy. Of course I’ve noticed you’ve had a houseguest for the last month. I’m Donna. I notice everything.” She turned back to James. “Why have you been sleeping on Mike’s couch?”

James doesn’t know how to answer that, but finds he doesn’t need to because Mike draws her attention to him. He outstretches his right arm and shows Donna his wrist, free of his watch for the first time in months.

Donna blinks at it as if not sure of what she’s seeing. “Alright, how did I not notice that?”

* * *

 

The day after Mike let James meet Donna, he wandered into the living room in his boxers. The shower was running, so he assumed James was in there. Mike poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down in his favorite armchair. He grabbed his laptop off the coffee table and opened the lid. He’d disabled the password on it the second week James had been living with him, so he wasn’t surprised to find that it was already turned on with a webpage already loaded in the browser.

Usually, Mike just minimized James’ windows and did his own thing, but this time he paused. There was a picture of James on the side of the screen. Mike glanced at the web address and recognized it in the vague way of “I’ve heard of it, but never visited it.” Unshielded Secrets was a website where someone had compiled all the information leaked from SHIELD the day Captain America fought Hydra in DC. Mike had no interests in the secrets of government organizations, so had never been tempted to look at it.

If he’d been so tempted, the information on his screen now would not have come as a surprise to him. File Name: Winter Soldier. Categorized: Hydra Security Clearance Level 9. Subject: James Buchanan Barnes.

Mike read the page with increasing amounts of shock, awe, and disgust.

How could someone do this stuff to a human being?

How could anyone have survived this?

Mike looked up from the computer and found James standing in the doorway of the bathroom. He looked frightened and unsure. “I thought you deserved to know who you were letting into your life,” James mumbled. “If you want me to leave, I would understand.”

Leave? Why would he ever want James to leave? Surely not because he’d spent seventy years being victimized by a Nazi organization.

Mike set down his laptop and got to his feet. He crossed the room in quick steps until he was face to face with James. “Don’t go,” he said, vocalizing it with his mouth and not his hands. He raised his arms and wrapped them around James in a hug. “Don’t go,” he repeated.

It took a second, but soon James melted into his embrace and hugged him back.

* * *

 

James kisses Mike.

It’s January 1st, but not the stroke of midnight. Mike had the week off of work and they’d spent the time watching all his favorite holiday movies: Home Alone 1 and 2, Die Hard, Rise of the Guardians, Four Brothers, A Charlie Brown Christmas, all eight Harry Potter movies, and many more movies that may or may not have vaguely referenced Christmas in some shape or form. Mike is very determined to give James a proper pop culture education.

Neither of them had slept very well the night before, the fireworks at midnight had left both of them jumpy and anxious. Mike had woken three times crying out for Harvey. James had woken thinking he was in the middle of a battlefield.

When finally the sun rose, they both stopped pretending to sleep and went to the kitchen. Mike made James’ coffee just the way he liked it. James took the cup and leaned forward and placed a kiss on Mike’s lips without even thinking about it.

They both freeze in place.

Mike forgets his coffee on the counter when he runs to his room.

* * *

 

“Don’t go,” Mike says when he comes into the living room and finds James packing his things into the Army duffle he’d moved in with.

“Mike,” James starts, but Mike cuts him off.

“Don’t go,” he repeats. “There’s…” he pauses to swallow down the monster in this throat that’s trying to steal his words. “There’s stuff I haven’t told you.”

James sighs and sits down on the couch. He motions Mike towards him, but Mike can’t bring himself to be close to him just yet. He sits in his favorite armchair. Silence owns the room for a long moment. Mike wrings his hands. It would be easier to just sign it all, but for some reason he feels like James deserves to hear the words spoken aloud.

He doesn’t know where to start. His mouth opens and closes, but no words come out.

“You don’t have to push yourself, Mike,” James says.

“I have to tell you.” He signs those words, then yanks his hands out of the air and sits on them. James just nods and sits back. All the patience in the world is written in his eyes.

“Harvey,” Mike begins, and then stops. That doesn’t feel like the place to start. James already knows about Harvey. What Mike and Donna hasn’t told him outright, James figured out on his own. He’s smart and all the pieces were there. Mike was glad James had put it together himself, because he hadn’t been ready to talk about it.

“I was pregnant,” Mike says. It’s the first time he’d ever spoken those words out loud. James was the first person Mike had ever told. Donna didn’t even know. Harvey hadn’t even known.

The day aliens invaded New York, Mike had lost his soul mate, his fiancé, his voice, and his unborn child. That baby would have been all he had left of Harvey, but Mike hadn’t been strong enough. He’d been too weak to hold on to even a fetus.

Mike had lost everything that day. He’d wanted to die. Harvey and their child were both dead, and Mike had wished he’d died along with them. It would have been easier than carrying this pain inside himself for so long.

He’d thought he would never recover. He’d thought he would never have with anyone else what he’d had with Harvey.

But then James had come along.

* * *

 

James kisses Mike.

It doesn’t fix anything, but it lets him know he’s not alone.

* * *

 

Mike finds his voice again.

He’s not immediately better. Most of the time the words still get lost or he panics trying to force them out, but it gets easier.

And it’s okay that he’s not instantly okay, because James has his own brand of “not okay” that’s hanging around. Mike doesn’t need to be completely better, because his damage fits with James’ damage and they carry each other along.

They finally talk about the things they ignored before. They talk about the ghosts named Harvey and Bucky. They talk about fake law degrees and life on the front lines. They argue about ‘30s Brooklyn versus ‘90s Brooklyn and friends named Steve and Trevor. They talk about Mike’s nightmares and James’ waking dreams where doesn’t recognize him or where or when they are and his first instinct is to fight and kill.

They feel they’re way through life, finding their way together.

He doesn’t make James sleep on the couch anymore.

* * *

 

Mike is happy. He can see it in his eyes. Feel it in his kisses.

It makes James happy knowing Mike is happy.

Donna is happy that they’re both happy.

* * *

 

It’s the middle of March when Mike realizes it’s been months since he’s had a truly terrible nightmare. Ever since James had started sleeping in his bed, he’s felt safer and his dreams have been calmer. It’s like James is his personal guard against terror.

Mike likes having James at his side. Likes him in his bed. Loves him in his arms.

It’s the middle of March when Mike and James have sex for the first time. James refuses to touch him until he gets a promise from Mike to actually say “no” or “stop.” To use his words to lay the boundaries.

The way James is so careful with him is enough to tell Mike that he won’t regret this.

* * *

 

On the last day of April, James realizes he no longer wishes to learn how to be Bucky again.

He doesn’t need to be Bucky anymore. Bucky Barnes had been Steve Rogers’ friend and he’d been a great man.

But James was Mike Ross’ lover and he was a pretty good person too.

So what if he wasn’t a soldier or national hero?

Mike didn’t need a soldier. Mike needed someone to remind him where he put his cell phone and to make sure he ate breakfast. Mike needed someone who knew when to speak or when silence was better. Mike needed someone who dragged him out of the house instead of letting him live as a recluse. Mike needed someone who could listen and someone who would hold him after a bad dream.

James didn’t need to be a national hero as long as he could be Mike’s hero.

* * *

 

It’s the third week in May when Mike tells James he loves him.

He reads the panic on his lover’s face and quickly adds, “You don’t have to say it back. It’s okay if you’re not ready. We have all the time in the world."

* * *

 

It’s the beginning of June, when things go wrong.

“Mike, run!” James yells.

He’s unarmed. Why the hell was he unarmed? Because he’d gotten complacent. He’d gotten used to the simple civilian life he’d lived with Mike. He thought there was no need for him to be the Soldier anymore. He’d thought he and Mike could take Sunday afternoon walks and the only trouble they would run into would be easily defended against with fist and feet and years of muscle memory.

Mike screams.

Someone’s grabbed him and James can’t get to his side because he’s completely surrounded. Someone curses and James turns enough to see the Mike had kneed his assailant in the groin.

“James!” Mike yells, obviously ready to throw himself in the fray and help James as much as he can.

“Run!” James repeats. Mike hesitates, but follows the order when another guy makes a grab for him. It’s Hydra. He knows this. He does everything he can to fight them off, but he’s more concerned with keeping them from going after Mike than protecting himself.

There’s too many of them to take down unarmed anyway. Doesn’t stop him from killing a few, but they overwhelm him with their numbers alone.

He prays Mike has gotten away.

* * *

 

There’s a security guard behind the desk in the lobby of Avengers Tower. Mike’s walked passed him five days a week for seventeen months. He never drew the man’s attention as he crossed the lobby and got on the elevator, riding it up to the accounting floor, his employee nametag hanging around his neck being enough to say he belongs here.

He doesn’t have his nametag when he enters the tower that day. He doesn’t walk calmly to the elevator. He sprints across the lobby and jabs the button for the elevator with as much force as he can. He gets the security guard’s attention, and the man rounds the desk and takes a step towards Mike.

“Hey, what’s your business here?”

Mike turns to him and tries to speak, but the words dry up in his throat like they have so many times before. He turns back to the elevator and jams his finger against the button again.

“Look kid, I can’t let you in here unless you state your business.”

A hand falls heavily on Mike’s shoulder and he screams, falling to his knees and covering his head just like he’d done all those months ago in the alleyway outside his apartment building. Behind him, the elevator opens. Mike launches himself towards the door, but slams into someone before he can make it inside.

“What’s going on here?”

Mike yanks himself out of the arms on the man who’d caught him. His heart is pounding and he’s half expecting to have to fight his way out of here. But then he registers just who it was who’d stepped out of the elevator. Two men he’d only ever seen from a distance or on film. Clint Barton and Sam Wilson.

Mike feels some tension leave him. If Sam Wilson is here, then Steve Rogers is here. If Steve Rogers is here, he can help James.

The monster in his throat is back, eating up any word he tries to say. Finally, Mike just raises his hands and go with what’s familiar.

“I need to speak with Steve Rogers,” he tells them, spelling out every letter on the hero’s name with quick movements of his fingers and looked out with blue eyes pleading to be understood.

Barton frowns. “Steve?” He says while signing words for “flag” and “man.” There are no ASL words for specific names, you either spelled them out or use signs for things you associated with that person instead.

Mike nods and repeats the signs. “It’s about James.” He spells out James.

Barton frowns again. “James Barnes?” He says it out loud while he signs it.

“He’s in trouble. Hydra attacked us.”

“Hydra?” It’s Wilson who says this with shock in his voice.

The next thing Mike knows, he’s being ushered into the elevator and taken all the way to the top floor. “Jarvis, call the team to the common room,” Barton says as they step off the elevator. He turns to Mike and signs, “What’s your name?”

Mike spells out his name, then adds, “I’m mute, not deaf.”

Barton grins and signs the letters for his name, the follows it with the signs for bird and eye. “I’m deaf, not mute,” he adds out loud. He tilts his head and Mike and see the tiny hearing aid in his ear.

Sam signs his name as well and follows it with the signs for bird and man. “I’m just a man of many skills,” he says.

They reached what Mike assumed was the common room and Mike was surprised to find it filled with more people he’d only ever seen on TV screens and newspapers. Iron Man, Hulk, Thor, Black Widow, and Captain America. As well as a woman Mike had already met a couple of time, seeing as she was his boss, Pepper Potts.

Pepper recognizes him the instant she sees him. “Mike Ross?”

“You know him?” Sam asks, crossing the room to sit next to Steve.

“He works downstairs in accounting. I hired him on the recommendation of a friend and haven’t regretted yet.” She looks at Mike and signs in the careful way of someone still learning the language, “Are you okay? Do you need me to call Jessica?”

Mike shakes his head.

“He says he and Barnes were attacked by Hydra,” Clint says.

“Bucky?” Steve Rogers asks, suddenly very interest in the proceedings. “You know Bucky?”

“He prefers James,” Mike signs and Sam translates for him. “He was my…” He stops and decides showing them would be easier. He takes off the watch on his right wrist and thrust his arm towards Steve so that the man could read the small word there.

If Mike didn’t know that Steve had Sam’s name on his arm, he would have sworn the look that flittered across the man’s face was heartbreak.

…

Clint says, “Don’t worry, we’ll find him.”

Natasha says, “You need to understand that, if James is back in Hydra’s custody, they’ve undoubted wiped his memory and reprogrammed him again. If we find him, he’d not going to be the same person you lost. He may not even recognize you, or worse, Hydra could send him to eliminate you in order to tie up the loose ends. At this point, it may be better for you if we don’t find him.”

At the end of the day, they don’t find him.

…

Mike isn’t allowed to return to his apartment because the location may have been compromised. “If they knew when to ambush you, that means they’ve been watching you. Your apartment isn’t safe anymore.

“But where else can I go?” Mike asks, thinking about Donna but not wanting to bring this shit to her doorstep.

“You’ll stay here of course,” Stark says as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

That’s how he ends up with his own bedroom in Avengers Tower. He still works downstairs in accounting. Donna visits him every Saturday for breakfast. He spends a lot of time with superheroes. Clint is his favorite, though Sam is a close second. The three of them sit around having long conversations in ASL. Stark always complains that it’s rude to have secret conversations with other people in the room and he always tries to get his AI to translate for him, but Jarvis never does. Which prompts Stark to complain about betraying computers until Bruce drags him off to his lab.

Mike’s pretty sure Natasha can understand them as well, but she never has much to say to Mike. She does like Donna, though. After breakfast with mike, Donna, Pepper, and Natasha have a secret meeting of Powerful Red Head Women. Sometimes Jessica joins them and it becomes a secret meeting of Powerful Women Who Scare Mike. Mike’s not entirely sure they’re not planning world domination.

Steve does have a lot to say to Mike. He asks about James. Always calls him Bucky. Asks what he was like. Did he ever seem dangerous? Was his favorite pizza still the same? Did he talk about Steve at all? Mike almost feels sorry for him. He could tell Steve had loved James. Maybe, in their former life, the two of them had been soul mates.

…

Mike’s belly grows round and heavy with each passing month, swelling with new life. More than anything, he wants James back in time to see the birth of the child he hadn’t known they were having.

…

Mike wakes up one morning, four months after moving into Avengers Tower, and finds James’ name gone from his wrist.

He curls around himself and cries. It never gets any easier. It never hurts any less. He sobs loudly, there’s no one there to hear him anyway.

Except there is.

There’s a fluttering a movement under the palm pressed against his stomach and it causes Mike to pause. It’s not much, but it’d enough to remind Mike that he’s not alone.

He’d lost Harvey’s child at the same time he’d lost Harvey, because Mike hadn’t been strong enough to hang on to either of them. And now he’d lost James. He would rather die than lose James’ child, too.

* * *

 

The Soldier crouched low in his nest, looking down the scope of his riffle. His target is in the crosshairs, a blond man in the middle of a group of people, a small child seated on his lap.

His finger rests against the trigger, not pulling it back just yet. It’s a clear shot, but he feels like the timing is wrong. The man laughs at something one of his companions says and the Soldier just watches him.

He knows he should take the shot, but he can’t bring himself to do so at the moment. The blond stands and passes the child he was holding to the black man seated next to him. He does something with his hands that the Soldier doesn’t quite understands, then he turns to head inside.

The Soldier tells himself it’s now or never. If he waits any longer, the man will be out of range. His finger feels heavy against the trigger.

He doesn’t understand why he can’t pull it.

**Author's Note:**

> Unmentioned details about this Soul Mate 'verse: it takes place in a world without homophobia because you don't get to choose who your soul mate is. In fact, everyone it assumed to be pansexual and pansexuality is held to the standards of heterosexuality out here in the real world. Being exclusively heterosexual is considered weird because what if your soul mate is the same gender as you? Will you let the mark fade without ever giving them a chance?
> 
> There are polyamorous soul mates. I never hashed out the details, but it is possible.
> 
> It's not always so, but usually if your Mark is on the left side of your body, your mate's Mark will be on the right side of their body.
> 
> There are people who believe that the Marks do not represent soul mates and romantic love, but instead is a way of saying a person has come into your life that is going to change you in a way that you'll carry them with you forever.
> 
> Even after being in a long committed relationship, Marks can fade. If the people involved become too different from how they were when they received the Mark and their no longer compatible, the Marks will fade on their own. It's the "I woke up this morning and realized I no longer knew the person who'd been sleeping next to me for the last five years" sort of falling out of love with each other thing being reflected in the Marks. (The reason Mike loses Bucky's name is because of this.)
> 
> [I am on tumblr.](http://littleredtriskele.tumblr.com)


End file.
